Cavebat
by Eyes like Dawn
Summary: When Batman comes to Gotham's rescue against Grod wielding a time-gun, his body is warped back into the form of a caveman. Between the Justice League trying to find the villain and put a stop to their evil plan, hi-jinks ensue. Can the Justice League get to the bottom of the mystery without the world's greatest detective? Part humor, part mystery, part romance, part serious.
1. A Day in Gotham

_A/N: Part humor, part mystery, mostly just a crazy brain-child. Will try to update regularly but no promises. _

Gotham, like every city on earth had good days and bad days. Sometimes the streets were clean, the drunks and druggies were out of sight, and children could walk home in safety. On good days, people threw open their windows and walked in the manicured parks and bought ice cream from fat mustachioed men pushing vibrantly painted freezers-on-wheels.

On bad days, the police were out in force with batons in hands and guns at the ready. Everyone huddled in their homes, hoping for the best and expecting the worse. Gunshots would ring out and people hoped their neighbors had been hit and not members of their own family. Gangs would run loose in the streets or worse, madmen with their maniacal toys and chilling laughter.

Life seemed to be one or the other in Gotham City, never a mix. Either the city was having a good day or a bad day.

Soaring towards the city in the sleek, black Batjet, eyes pinned to the beautiful skyline of the city, now marred with a huge columns of black smoke rising from the Financial District, Bruce knew Gotham was having a very, very bad day.

Austere Gothic buildings that were the heart of the district and the oldest part of the city itself, blazed from the inside as fire gutted the innards of the old buildings and sent flames spewing from the broken windows. Below on the streets that surrounded the district, sirens from a hundred, hundred different GCPD vehicles ranging from light cruisers to armor plated trucks that could have doubled as tanks all sang off chorus as they cordoned off as many streets and alleys as they could to contain the menace rampaging within the business epicenter of their city. People in business suits and one hundred dollar ties ran from the district, their eyes wide with fear and their hearts pounding, desperate to get away from the terrors within. Thousands of sheets of paper from the innards of brief cases and file cabinets from ruined buildings fluttered in the air, mingling with the debris of dust and smoke. At one instance an entire bank safe went flying and crashed into a neo-gothic building across the street. Glass shards glittered to the ground like deadly snow and the safe slid backwards and tumbled down from the crater in the side of the building, landing on a red sedan parked just beneath where the safe had been tossed.

Yes, Gotham was having a very, very, _very_ bad day.

Pulling the jet's controls into a wide, banking curve, Bruce began to circle the district as the scanners on the outside of the jet tried to get a read on what was happening below. Two different screens in the cockpit were blinking as they tried to work through the smoke to identify the threat.

"Are you sure you won't wait for back up, sir?" Alfred's always calm, distinguished voice asked from the Batjet's radio. "The computer says that Batgirl can be there within fifteen minutes, or even sooner if she can maneuver through that abysmal rush-hour traffic across the Thomas Wayne Memorial Bridge."

Effortlessly steering the Batjet through between the fire-riddled buildings, Bruce gave a slight shake of his cowled head. "I can't wait for Batgirl when I don't know exactly who or what is attacking." Always the shrewd logistician, he knew he couldn't wait for back up when the threat was still unknown and, to his radar's, completely invisible, leaving him as in the dark as when the whole mess had started.

All his and Alfred's brain power hadn't yet clued him in on who was assaulting the District. The Joker was still holed up in Arkham and the Penguin, whose fortune could have brought such heavy artillery to assault the District, had been keeping a low profile, preferring to stay close to the Iceberg Lounge now that mobster Falcone was back in town. A dozen other villains had been summarily brought to their attention and instantly dismissed as well. Most didn't have the firepower to take down an entire district and for the rest that did have the means to attack the District the attack was simply not their style. Ivy would have used plants, Freeze would have used ice, and this was too on-the-nose for Ras al Ghul, a man who preferred to work his devious plans in the shadows. This fit none of the regular villains, M.O and the rest weren't interested in causing mayhem in the District.

So, Bruce thought grimly, either Gotham had a new greedy mad-man in town or he had skipped over some minor villain who was now being backed from a wealthier source. The last option had happened before and could justifiably happen again but Bruce knew Gotham's scum like he knew the back of his hand. Criminals in their city rarely liked taking help from outside sources. Gotham's underground was insular to the point of exclusivity. Many Gothamite low-lives saw their independence from any outside source as a badge of pride. Just like Batman, they didn't like help from anyone outside the city.

At the thought of outside aide, Bruce's gaze briefly flickered to the computer panel on his console. The contact code for the Justice League was already blazed bright red on the screen, ready to be activated at a moment's notice and a distress signal sent out from the jet. Though he may not have liked any outside help in his city, he was not fool enough to let pride keep him in the way of saving Gotham.

Flicking his eyes back down to the streets and still seeing nothing but the devastation wrought by the invisible enemy, he couldn't help but wonder if finally some truly super powered threat had come down on the city. Most of the villains in the city were sick in the mind and didn't have the destructive capabilities of a Doomsday or a Darkseid, what if they had one now? Shaking the thought away, he tapped a button on the screen directly below his field of view. The screen went black then a second later a line went across the screen and Jim Gordon's face stared back at him. "Any updates, Jim?" he asked, his tone darker than normal.

"If you're asking me, then we must really be in trouble." Gordon shook his head forlornly. "I've talked to witnesses, all who said they didn't see a thing. It was as if some ghost had come to wreck the place."

"If no one has seen anything then I'm going in," Bruce declared. "Keep me posted if anything new comes to light, Jim."

Gordon bobbed his head once. "I was afraid you'd say that. Be safe, Batman."

As the screen went dark, Bruce circled the District one last time, then gently nosed the jet down onto a street that didn't have cars piled within the center. The wheels squealed as he landed but even before the jet stopped, the roof opened wide and Batman jumped out, a breathing-mask snapping over the lower half of his exposed face, and landed behind the jet, hidden in the black fumes of the jet's exhaust. The autopilot continued to move the jet forward, slowing the small craft to a stop right at the end of an upturned bus. Batman waited, crouched low in the smoke, to see if anyone would shoot at the jet but not a shot fired out.

Tapping a key on his gauntlet, the Dark Knight briefly checked how much fresh air he had left in his suit then turned on the sonar optics in his mask. The world turned from smoky gray to deep black with bright pulses as the sonar went into effect and gave Batman a picture of the world he wouldn't have been able to see on his own.

Chunks of buildings lay in the streets and cars smashed to pancakes sat in their parking spaces. Fire belched from destroyed buildings and water mains spewed up tons of water from their burst piping. Most people had been able to get out, due to the work day being nearly at an end, but others, not so lucky lay unmoving in the street, victims of another bad day in Gotham.

Methodically checking every scanner, Bruce searched for any signs of life. Of course the moment he saw a living person he would make all attempts to save them, but finding people was not his goal. The GCPD could do that better and more effectively than he could, what he needed to do was find the person causing all the trouble so that the police and medics could get in and do their jobs.

So far however, whatever was tearing through the district was nowhere to be found.

"I'm not picking anything up on the scanners," Batman finally admitted, his voice edged with a hint of frustration. Something so destructive should have left some sort of presence. The witnesses called it ghost-like but ghosts did not leave gaping holes in the Gotham Savings and Loan Bank.

"I'm afraid I am of the same disposition, sir," Alfred replied politely in Batman's earpiece. "The computer is picking up no source for this destruction. This is quite unusual."

Though loathe to agree, Bruce couldn't find a problem with Alfred's statement. His tech, both in the Batjet and in the cave, where Alfred was stationed, surpassed even the systems on the Watchtower. He should have been able to pick up everything from an antique handgun to a Lantern Ring and everything in between but nothing appeared to indicate any massive weapon or person on his sonar or on his satellites orbiting over their location.

"I suppose we'll have to do this the hard way," The Dark Knight returned grimly.

Alfred gave a dreary sigh over the communicator. "I suppose we shall, sir. Shall I call up more reinforcements?"

"Knowing Batgirl she's already called up Nightwing if you haven't already." The faintest of smiles hinted at the edges of Batman's lips before dying away.

"I thought it also appropriate to contact Catwoman in case further assistance was needed," Alfred revealed in his ever dignified tone of voice. "She has an uncanny knack for helping you out of tight situations, sir."

Batman scowled but didn't reply as he slid into the darkness of the smoke and seemed to all but disappear. A second later he stood beside the ruined Savings and Loan, a scanner in his hand. Tapping a key on the console of the device, the scanner opened, and the machine hummed to life. A bright orange light pierced out from the bottom of the machine. The light started from the corner of the building where Batman stood, reading the composite materials and showing off minerals and any radio activity.

"Picking up anything strange on your end, Alfred?" Batman asked as he examined his reader. Both computer and reader were connected and while the scanner was advanced the readings that the scanner gave went directly to the Batcomputer and, with Alfred at the computer, more thorough information was fed back to him

"I'm sorry, sir," Alfred admitted. "As far as regular stone goes, this fits the bill perfectly."

Another near smile nearly appeared behind the breathing mask. "Exactly." Batman effortlessly moved over to a piece of large rubble fallen from the same building and began the scan anew. "Now let's see if anything is different." He pointed the scanner gun at the broken edge of the boulder sized piece of rubble and began the scan again.

Though always ready for combat the detective in Batman, ached to solve the mystery before whatever had assaulted the District appeared. The being could have been gone but he doubted that circumstance greatly. Villains had an overbearing, precocious need to let the world know just who was causing harm. In Gotham, that need was almost an addiction. Every villain left a calling card of some sort, or a memento so that the world knew exactly who was doing the deed. Sometimes they tried to hide it, masked under layers and layers of intrigue and subterfuge but they never left it out.

"Oh my," Alfred inhaled in surprise, breaking Batman's train of thought. Over the communicator, he heard the Batcave computer chirp in the background and a second later his scanner made the same noise as the information from the computer reached his device.

Batman arched a brow incredulously, mirroring Alfred's surprise without words. "The stone didn't fall because of any heavy blast of fire or projectile," Batman announced aloud, thinking more to himself than speaking with Alfred. "It simply… eroded? I can't say. I've never seen anything like this. The stone's age has changed."

"Do we happen to know anyone who could get their hands on some sort of time altering device, sir?" Alfred queried, his voice much more uncertain.

Batman shook his head. "Not from around here, no." Putting his hand to the left ear of his cowl, he suddenly changed the signal in his communicator then stopped. His first instinct was to contact the Justice League but he was no novice to time travel. He had been on his own little misadventure with it once or twice. He could handle this. A dangerous and knew unknown this certainly was but he wasn't about to call down the entire Justice League, not when he only had one piece of the puzzle.

Actually no, he corrected himself. He had two pieces of the puzzle.

"Whatever is doing this, Alfred, I think I understand why the scanner isn't picking up on them."

"Do tell, sir."

Deactivating the scanner, Batman put the device back into his belt with a light click. He still stared at the rubble dubiously as if the stone had more secrets to give. "If this weapon is from the future, then the scanners couldn't possibly pick it what it can't even begin to fathom, and if just a weapon of this magnitude can't be traced then the person wielding the weapon probably won't be able to be traced with my tech either."

"Or," a cultured, snide voice said behind him. "If the technology was made by someone far superior than you, your pathetic little instruments couldn't read them."

Batman dove to his left on instinct, throwing himself into an alley for cover, but no shot was fired. He whirled around the smoke curled about him and let the radar try to pick up any activity. Nothing.

Alfred cleared his throat over the communicator, a sure sign that he was about to give advice that Batman did not want to hear. "Sir, if I may be so bold, shouldn't we contact your associates in the Watchtower?"

"I can handle this, Alfred," Batman growled as he slipped against the edge of a building. "Batgirl will be here any minute and Catwoman after her. We can stop this."

"Can you now?" the voice chuckled maliciously. A boulder sized piece of building soared towards Batman but he leapt back, nimbly dodging the stone. Without even pulling his hands from under his cape, he continued to casually walk onwards in the smoke choked alley.

"Oh yes," the precocious voice taunted. "Pretend you know where you're headed Dark Knight, on the quest to solve the mystery. You've no idea what you're dealing with and I know it. I know it for I am your intellectual superior."

"From what I've seen, intellectual superiors don't cause so much destruction. Nuance is the name of the game," Batman returned darkly. Inside, his mind reeled as he thought to come up with an answer to the location of the voice. Every bit of voice recognition software brought nothing up and his scanners still could get no read on a body.

The voice snorted. "Brute strength is all you Neanderthals understand."

"He calls us Neanderthals, an alien, sir?" Alfred guessed. Batman could hear the loyal butler's fingers tapping wildly at the keys on the computer, trying to bring up any known cosmic super villains in their region of space.

Batman shook his head. "This tech he's carrying isn't alien in nature. Neanderthal is an insult from one human to another."

"Oh how wrong you are, Dark Knight!" The invisible creature laughed. "A worthy guess from you and your associate, I grant you."

Without another word, Batman cut the connection from Alfred, destroying the transmitter than bound them in the process. If the thing in the shadows could hear Alfred's part of the conversation then they had cracked their encrypted communications and they'd be able to track every member of the bat family. He would not risk that happening, or letting the secure system be compromised. Better it be destroyed.

"Fear not, Batman, I have no intention of wasting even an inkling of my time unravelling your communications to pilfer all your secrets. Perhaps I'd do it to stave off boredom but I have other matters at hand now."

"I'm all ears." Batman replied, trying to buy time. Selena and Barbara were on their way. Together three would be better than one in tracking down such a villain and he had no doubt Alfred was already getting in touch with the Justice League. All there was left to do not was keep the mystery man talking.

The invisible creature made a tsk-tsk sound. "That would not be any fun at all."

"No one is having any fun. This wonton destruction is useless. Tell me what you came for!" Batman snarled into the smoke.

"Ah the iconic Batman growl," the creature replied in amusement. "Truly this has been a day of great gain. For that, I shall let on to a minute portion of my plans. My reason for coming was twofold. First, I came to gather the remains of an old debt, and secondly, I came to put you out of commission."

As the last word fell, Batman felt heat press against his face. The alley wall in front of him began to mold and shift as some sort of camouflage lifted from the face of the stone. A large, ape-like head came them the stone and smiled at him. Batman knew who he was instantly. The metallic band about his misshapen cranium was unmistakable – Grod.

The recognition happened within an instant and Batman was already on the move before he realized his mistake. The thing in front of him was not the real Grod but an illusion. The wall remained firmly in place and he saw a bit of debris fall straight through the smiling simian. A fierce blow suddenly struck him in the back, sending the Dark Knight sprawling to the ground. He tried to rise but Grod, the real Grod's foot slammed into his back and pinned him to the grimy street's face.

Grimacing in pain, Batman managed to turn his head and peer at Grod from the corner of his eye. The large ape was attired in a shining metal suit and a large safe that looked like it had been made in the 1920's was wedge under one arm. In his hands he held a gun that looked akin to an elephant rifle. A large green crystal spun in a chamber on the barrel and another spun on the top of the barrel like a strange firing-sight.

"You were correct about the age changing in the stone, Dark Knight. You surmised that quickly as I knew you would. Alas, I regret that your final mystery was so poor a challenge." Grod leveled the gun down at Batman and squinted an eye as he lined him in in the crystal sight. "Any last words, Dark Knight?"

Batman opened his mouth but Grod cut him off with a growling laugh. "Too late!"

With that, Grod pulled the trigger. Instead of a bullet, a bright, searing light exploded from the barrel and hit Batman at full force. Batman screamed in pain, his back arching and fingers spasming. Summoning all his wherewithal, he touched one button on his gauntlet and then could do nothing but let himself fall into the pain. He writhed in vain beneath the heel of the massive ape, then, with his body smoking a strange green steam, went still.

Victorious, Grod blew the green smoke form the barrel of the gun like a sharpshooting cowboy. He loomed over Batman and considered pulling off the mask and taking a look at the Dark Knight but quickly abandoned the notion. The man before him was no more of a threat. If anything he would now be a laughing stock of the entire hero-world. Oh how far the mighty did fall.

Slinging the gun on his back, Grod gave the stilled Batman a mocking, two-fingered salute. "Goodbye, caped crusader," he laughed snidely. "Let's see the world's greatest detective solve this mystery now." With that the huge ape stalked out of the Financial District with his two-fold mission accomplished. In one hand he held the large, lead lined safe, and in the other the strange gun that had just put the Dark Knight out of commission.

The revving of the Batmobile's engine echoed through the destroyed District not minutes after Grod's disappearance. The sleek vehicle slowed to a stop directly where Batman lay. The top snapped open and Batgirl leapt out.

Cowled face twisted with anxiety she ran over to the fallen Dark Knight. "I've found him Alfred," she confirmed. "His suits not responding, not even to any backup systems."

"Careful with him, Batgirl," Alfred urged. "The Justice League is on their way. If you can move him, do so, if not wait for them."

Batgirl nodded, even though she knew Alfred couldn't see and knelt beside Batman. His body was still smoking but his long cape covered him, too similar, she lamented, like a funeral shroud. "Please don't be dead," she pleaded in a whisper. "Please don't be dead."

Scanners flared in Batgirls optics, doing a full scan of his body. To her surprise not a scar or wound showed. There wasn't even a hint of internal bleeding.

"Are you seeing this, Alfred?" she asked, wanting another pair of eyes to confirm what her own optics were reading. He didn't have any scars at all, even where there should have been.

"He looks perfectly healthy," Alfred confirmed in awe. "Heartrate normal, temperature normal, breathing all normal."

A breath of relief nearly shot from Batgirl's lips but skepticism prevented her from letting her anxiety go. He shouldn't have been fully healed, as much as she was happy to see that he was. Something else was going on. "I'm going to turn him around, just to make double sure for my own eyes."

"Carry on, Batgirl," Alfred encourage. "The League will be there shortly."

Knowing they had little time, Batgirl grabbed Batman by the shoulder and gingerly turned him over. The suite, all save for the cape was in tattered shreds. The metal from his gauntlet and belts and all his gadgets were almost slag-like.

Normally, Batgirl would have taken her time to examine the change but her eyes were frozen to Batman's face. His cowl was gone, shredded and slagged by the same force that tore away his clothes and what she saw nearly made her heart stop dead. His face was Bruce Wayne's of that there was no doubt but there were subtle changes that anyone who had been with him any amount of time could see. His brow was more pronounced, jutting almost. His hair was longer and shaggier and his jaw a little squarer, his nose a little flatter. It was Bruce alright but then again it was as if Bruce had been blasted back to the Neolithic.

"Alfred?" Barbara managed in a small, frightened voice.

"Yes Batgirl?"

"We're in trouble, Alfred," she informed in with a trembling sigh "We're in big, big trouble."


	2. Awaken the Bat

2

Bah-ruce had never dreamed so many dreams for so long. In his mind images of flying bats and metal bats and people in strange skins and people with skin shiny like water all congregated and fought. In other dreams he saw people with faces like owls staring silently at him. In yet other dreams he saw himself fighting with a cackling, white-faced demon with a red smeared-grin. Finally, there was a dream where many bat-people fought hordes of strange demons; demons with flipper hands and with lizard skin and scars all over their bodies.

Through swirls of mist he saw the bat-folk fighting the deranged demons from a long ways away and struggled to reach them. They needed help. He didn't know how he knew they needed help only that they did. If he didn't help them the bat-people would all die. Galvanized, no, _terrified_ by that prospect, he ran until his awkwardly large feet caused him to stumble and then he crouched, running on his knuckles, a much better feeling for his body. On and on and ran and yet he could never quite reach the images, they always drifted further away until at last they were gone.

With a howl of rage Bah-ruce stopped and fell flat on his stomach, panting and gasping for breath. Exhaustion filled him and he thought he was going to fall in the blackness of peaceful sleep but below him the ground turned to some sort of clear ice and another image played out. A strange man and woman without slouched brows and wearing strange pelts stood in a narrow tube of stone and old refuse with a young cub. He watched as a man in shadow stepped towards them with a strange shiny stick in his hand. Bah-ruce's heart clenched. The strange up-rights were going to die. He didn't know how he knew, he just did. A meaty fist pounded on the ice, trying to break through. If only he could land on the shadowed man, if only he could stop him.

But he couldn't.

The stick glowed like fire and roared thunder. A rock shot out from the hole at the end of the stick. Bah-ruce watched in slowed time as the rock hit the up-right man first and then another clap of thunder sounded and the up-right woman was pierced with another rock. She clutched the wound and staggered before falling to the ground. "Bruce," the up-right woman gasped in her last breath then she, like the up-right man, died.

The young cub looked down at them in horror. Tears filled his eyes and he fell to his knees, sobbing over the corpses of the dead elders.

Gaining more strength, Bah-ruce pounded his fist harder into the ice that separated them. Once, twice, thrice, until his hand began to bleed, he struck the ice. A long crack appeared against the ice and then another. Long striations began to crawl across the clear ice and the sound of a moving cracking struck his ears. Eagerly, desperately Bah-ruce continued to smash the ice until all at once the translucent barrier cracked and he was falling….

Falling….

~8~

"Sweet mother of mercy his heart rate is finally slowing!" Ray Palmer exclaimed ecstatically as he watched Batman's body relax and his lungs to start breathing easy.

Surrounded by the latest, Luthor, Wayne, Queen, Cadmus, and Star labs, technology, Ray could read practically everything that was happening to Batman's body. Beside the doctor and scientist, a tray with green sedatives for Joker toxin, Fear toxin, and a dozen different others poisons were ready to go in case Batman's condition grew worse again but he seemed to be quickly recovering. Sensors beeped and blinked all around Ray and screens showing 3-D images of Batman's body all catalogued and reported his now stable condition.

Ever since Batman's body had been brought up to the Watchtower he had been in a state of touch and go mortality as they ran tests to see what had happened to him. Everything they tried seemed to backfire. Thrice he had gone into cardiac arrest, carried a fever, which had just now broken, and he had been in a coma from which they could not wake him. Now, at least, his heart rate was down to a normal beat and he was no longer thrashing in his comatose state. For all intents and purposes, Batman had cleared another hurdle to safety but they still had no answer on his condition or his coma.

However, what Ray deduced his condition was _not,_ was anything related to any of the caped crusaders normal enemies. From Joker toxin to fear gas, he tested negative to every malicious concoctions his foes had ever cooked up. Such ruling-outs, while a relief, were still a double edged sword. If it wasn't one of their poisons effecting him or one of their devices, then what was wrong with the Dark Knight?

Tapping a communicator near his ear, the scientist known as the Atom opened the signal for the primary members of the Justice League to hear. "This is Atom from sick bay. I'm pleased to report Batman is out of danger once again. The fever has been reduced, though there is no change from his catatonic state. At this point, I'm not sure what else I can dare try with him. Everything I do seems to put him in more danger."

"We know you're trying your best, Atom," Superman replied gratefully. In the background creatures shrieked and guns were firing.

Somewhere in Metropolis, Atom recalled, Superman was fighting off a horde of Lexbots and the dastardly Toyman who had unleashed them in what he called his "bald tin soldiers". Elsewhere Flash was saving people in Zanzibar from one of Weather Wizard's freak storms and the rest of the Justice League were on patrol with Wonder Woman in Paris, Shazam, fighting off balrogs in another dimension, Hal was off in another sector filling in for a fellow Lantern who was out sick with something his people called the Thanagar Flu. He knew he shouldn't have bothered all of them but everyone had insisted on keeping up with Batman's condition. He was one of the pillars of their team and they all considered each other family. What happened to one member of the team concerned them all.

"I wish I could do more." Atom frowned just a little and turned away from the cold, steel gurney that held Batman. "I just can't pinpoint what caused this. J'onn is still trying to decrypt Batman's last sent signal so we're still scratching our heads on this–" He got no further as large, hairy arms reached from behind and grabbed him in a headlock.

Muscled arms as strong as iron bands wrapped around his throat and pulled him back. His head was pressed upwards and the all to Bruce-yet-not-Bruce's face snarled down at him. Atom gurgled in terror and struggled, trying desperately to break Batman's iron hold.

"Atom?!" Barry Allen's voice clicked over the communicator. "Atom!"

Hands gripping desperately over Batman's arm, the Atom could barely breathed much less talk. Forcing himself to let one hand off of Batman's arm, Ray touched his belt and activated his powers. Instantly he began to shrink and in half a breath he was out of Batman's clutches. The shadow of Batman loomed over Ray as the body suddenly lurched forward and fell off the bed. Electrodes snapped off his body and monitors went crashing to the floor.

Atom dove out of the way of the body, barely missing being squashed. He rolled under the bed but Batman was already turning towards the bed and scrambling towards him, large fingers grasping at him. Ray panted and forced himself to go smaller, just barely escaping through the gap between Batman's fingers. "Batman is loose, I repeat, Batman is loose!" Ray called over the come as he entered atom-sized scale.

Above him, Batman roared in rage and flipped the gurney, and the tray beside it, over. A snarl etched his face as he looked over the upturned gurney where he was certain his opponent was hiding. Meaty hands tossed boxes of gloves and spare blankets and tugged away wires in a frenzy as he searched for his now pint-sized quarry.

"Hey Bats, I don't think you should be trashing the place, the nurses will kill ya," Barry quipped as suddenly he stood beside the Dark Knight. The electricity of the speed force was still crackling around him and the air smelled of ozone. He had quickly put down Weather Wizard and run all the way from a threat in Zanzibar to help the Atom. He would have been there five seconds earlier had the teleporter not slowed him down.

Batman snarled and whirled to face the Flash. A fist snapped out to hit him but Barry was already on his other side. "Let's just calm down and see if we can get you back into bed. I'd hate to hurt a patient."

The nearly-Bruce man snarled and launched himself in the other direction only for his quarry to be gone again. Barry shook his head and began to walk slowly up behind Batman. A sedative he had swiped from the many fallen syringes on the floor rested in one hand, the tip of the needle dripping the green liquid inside. "Alright, Bats, I gave you a chance, now it's time for bed."

He moved to plunge the needle into Batman's neck but this time the Bruce-not-Bruce was ready. Blanket in hand, Batman whirled and tossed it over Barry's face. The fastest man alive easily avoided the blanket and laughed as he watched it fly harmlessly past him. Did even this confused Batman really think that a blanket was going to stop him?

The thought had only just entered his mind, when he suddenly felt a light pinch in his thigh. Alarmed, he looked down and to his horror he saw Batman with one of the syringes in his hand and the needle pressed all the way into his flesh. The plunger was nearly at the bottom of the syringe and all the liquid was nearly in the Flash's body.

Barry hit the ground instantly, the strength in his knees deserting him. His blinked sluggishly, trying to stay away but the sedative was strong, meant to take down even the toughest of supervillains under the effects of Joker toxin. Without the toxin in the body the sedative hit like an angry Superman. The last thing he saw was Batman crouch like an ape and smirk. He picked up the edge of one of the upturned blankets and just as darkness was over taking the Flash, he put the fabric over Barry's head.

~8~

Two down, Bah-ruce thought grimly. Though the Neanderthal hoped that was the last of the enemies, he knew he couldn't rely on just hope nor could he really consider both his enemies defeated. One was still and down for certain, breathing but in a deep sleep and the other had simply disappeared. He hoped the first enemy was to have run away and the red up-right under the blanket would sleep for many turns of the sun, but he could not be sure that either would come to pass.

So, he knew, he had to keep moving.

Knuckle-walking, the Neanderthal Bah-ruce made a quick bandolier from one of the spare blankets and shoved the remaining, unbroken syringes inside. He didn't know what the strange fluid was but he had already deduced it was for some form of containment. He knew he was dangerous and if he knew it then other people would have known as well.

Doing a quick scan of the room, Bah-ruce looked for anything that could be made of use as a weapon. He would have loved a spear or a large hunk of wood but he had neither. The only thing that looked even remotely similar to a weapon was a large pole with clear bladders at the top and roll-y rocks at the bottom. Knuckling over, the Neanderthal broke off the wheels of the shiny, cold staff and ripped the IV bags from the top. He frown as he hefted the make-shift staff. He would have given his left foot for the weapon to have had a spear tip but there was no time to craft one. The staff would have to do.

Un-satisfied but knowing he didn't have any other options in the way of weapons, Bah-ruce turned to the door and came to his full height. His shoulders and the upper part of his back naturally came to a slouch and he would have rather been crouched, running on his knuckles in a more comfortable position but he needed the height. These full up-rights had the advantage of height and he needed that too.

Like a man hunting prey, Bah-ruce slowly stalked out of the room and found himself in a long, pristine hall. Windows to the left of him showed him utter darkness and nearly made him fall to his knees in shock. Outside the windows sat a large, turning orb all green and blue and beautiful. It floated amidst blackness and what he recognized as the moon shone nearby. Where was he? Was he dead? Where was the land and sea and sky?

"Beautiful, isn't it?" another voice chimed in somewhere in the hall.

Bah-ruce dipped into a crouch and whirled the staff but nothing was there.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Batman," the voice chided. "Put down the IV pole and think this through."

Bah-ruce snarled in reply to the haughty voice and the one word that everyone seemed to be using with him, this "Batman". Why did everyone keep calling him that, he was Bah-ruce.

Forcing the thought away, the Neanderthal carefully walked down the hall. Though he trod slowly he kept his guard up and looked in every direction for his newest opponent. He was there somewhere, he had to be.

"Out of respect for you, Batman, I ask, plead with you one more time to lay down the IV pole and the syringes. I will not ask again," the voice warned sternly.

Batman snorted in frustration and the unseen man sighed. "Have it your way then."

A rush of air swooped past Bah-ruce's shoulders and that's when he struck! Whirling, Bah-ruce lifted the pole as he came up to his full height and slammed the end of the IV Pole right into Hawkman's chin. Carter Hall's mace swung wildly, missing Batman's head by a mile as the rest of him was pushed back by the force of the well-aimed blow. His entire winged body hit the wall and he slid down, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Bah-ruce watched the winged-man fall and smirked again. He had seen the winged man's shadow even when he first silently winged down the hall and knew where he had been at all times, just by watching the shadow. How these things had captured him in the first place he would never know. They were all utterly inept.

Poking the body of the winged-man with his pole, just to make sure he was really unconscious, Bah-ruce knuckled over and looked over the strange creature. He must have been some demon-human hybrid. Part of him desired to know more of the wings and if they could be torn off but he knew he did not have time for such interests now. Instead, he jabbed the winged-man with one of the syringes then left the shiny stick with the winged-man and took up his mace. Now this was more like it!

Standing tall again, Bah-ruce smiled and gave the mace a few testing swings. This was a weapon he knew how to wield! Certainly it was a club with too many spikes, but a club just the same. Satisfied, Bah-ruce slung the mace over one hunched shoulder and slowly continued his way down the hall, ever ready for more enemies that might try to block his way to freedom.

~8~

"Aaaaand, he's got Hawkman's mace," Atom reported to the remaining members of the Justice League as he watched Batman shuffle down the hall.

"Is Hawkman alright?" Superman asked worriedly.

Running at top speed, Atom hopped unto the body and climbed up Hawkman's arm and shoulder. He came to his neck and pressed a hand down, monitoring the beat. "His pulse is strong and his breathing is steady. Batman K.O'd him in one blow. Flash is alright too, but he probably won't come around for another hour or so, Batman put enough sedative in him to knock out Killer Croc."

"Would someone please tell me how we're not only losing to a guy with no super powers, we're losing to a Neanderthal with no super powers?" Shazam asked over the communicator. There was a demonic screech in the background then a meaty punch as he sent the creature flying.

"He's Batman," the rest of the Justice League said simultaneously.

Shazam snorted. "I mean, yeah, duh, but he's like… just discovered fire Batman, not Batmobile, Batarang Batman." More demonic shrieks and more punches echoed from his side of the comm.

"An interesting observation, Shazam," Atom admitted. "He is a Neanderthal but seems to have retained everything that truly makes him Batman. He is cunning and cleaver and quite possibly the smartest man I've ever met… as smart as Neanderthal's go. It's still him just… not him? He's still Batman only as perhaps if a Batman had been needed in the Neolithic."

Shazam snorted incredulously into the comm. "Psh, whatever. All I hear are excuses for why we're getting out butts kicked by a caveman. If we're really earth's first defenders then I'd hate to be the earth."

"We don't want to hurt him, Shazam," Superman reminded him sternly. The teeth-grinding screech of metal being pulled apart blasted over his end of the comm. "We have to study him to see what's wrong. If we hurt him with our powers we only set ourselves back while he recovers."

"So this is a good old fashioned Batman round up?" Oliver's voice drawled in on the comm. He normally didn't have a Texas accent but he used one now, miming a cowboy who was going steer rustling.

"Something like that Green Arrow," Superman confirmed.

"Perfect, I'll be more n' happy to wrangle us a Batman." Nearly everyone could hear the smile on Oliver's face. He dropped the accent for a moment to speak regularly. "And I gotta admit, even though we're all concerned about Batman wellbeing, I'm going to enjoy this. I've wanted to hogtie Batman for years now."

"Careful, Arrow," Atom cautioned with all seriousness. "Flash and Hawkman have already made the mistake of underestimating him."

"Thanks for the advice, Atom, but I assure you I've got this under control," Oliver replied confidently, his Texas accent returning with a vengeance. "Yippe yo ki-yay. I'm gonna bag a bat for my pretty bird." He knew his wife was always listening. "I'll keep y'all posted, I'm exiting the teleporter. I'll head over to Atom first and see if I can pick up– WHERE THE HELL DID HE COME FROM!?" Oliver screamed.

A crash and short scuffle echoed over the communicator. A blast that sent every member on the comm wincing blared through the signal and caused a short burst of static before clearing. Something heavy thumped to the ground. The clack of arrows tumbling out of a quiver echoed eerily over the comm then all went quiet.

"Ollie?" Dinah Lane's voice suddenly came in on the communicator. "Ollie can you hear me?!"

"Atom, get over to the transporters!" Superman cried out.

"Already on it." Atom clicked a bottom on his belt and began to run down the other side of Hawkman's body. As he ran he brought up a holo-screen, his eyes darting over the flashing lights. "I'm accessing all the cameras. I want to know where he is." The screen flashed off then back on, giving Atom a live feed of the transporter room.

Green Arrow lay slumped in a corner and Ray Palmer gave a groan. "You guys aren't going to believe this," he panted into the comm as he ran. "Batman has a bow now…."

~8~

Bah-ruce notched an arrow as he ran down another empty hall. His body ached and one arm was singed and held minor first degree burns from the explosion from the arrow the green clad up-right had loosed. Even still, he knew he had to push away the pain and focus on getting free. Every sense was on high alert but he couldn't detect anyone around him but all the same he felt as if he were being watched. Shoulders hunching even more than normal, Bah-ruce raced quicker down the hall. Something flashed in the corner of his left eye and he turned, firing. The stupid-tipped arrow, as he was taking to calling them, crashed harmlessly into the wall, gave off a yellow gas, and snapped in two.

Cursing silently, the Neanderthal notched another arrow and continued to run. Another flash shot to his right but this time he didn't fire. Slowing, he turned around and stood frozen. Before him was a female, her brow slopped and wearing a piece of deer hide as a dress. She had red hair and was dirty and seemed lost and frightened. Perhaps she had escaped as well, Bah-ruce figured.

Lowering the bow just a little, he grunted at her. The woman grunted back but didn't come towards him. She kept nervously to the wall, trembling. She was innocent and frightened, his mind told him. Something in his thoughts whispered to help her. Part of him knew something was terribly wrong but he couldn't help himself. His legs began to move as if by their own volition. He had to get close, he had to help her. The closer he got the more he knew something was wrong but he couldn't help himself. All he could see was the fear and the need for help in her entrancing eyes.

Eyes, he knew suddenly, weren't natural. Just as he snapped out of the trance like state and was about to back away, the girl lunged and threw her arms around him. He twisted and turned to be free but her grip was like iron itself. The more he wriggled, the stronger the grip became and then to his horror, he saw the girl mutate, transformed into a creature with green skin and a bald head. "Please, Batman, you must stop this struggling." J'onn said in his ever calm voice. "I'm taking you back to the sick bay. If there is a little bit of you that remembers me anywhere in that mind, understand you do not have the strength to harm me, you will only harm yourself."

Martian Manhunter lifted Batman easily off the ground and stared at him with pity and awe. Though Batman now had the mind of a Neanderthal, he nearly resisted his mind-controlling demand and in the end had indeed snapped out of the lure. Either Batman's mental walls were still up or something else was blocking his powers from their full effect.

J'onn was still silently considering the possibilities when suddenly Batman's struggles stopped and his face twisted as if he had eaten something sour. His mouth puckered as if he were about to spit then out came a green lozenge, a capsule taken from one of the Green Arrow's trick arrows.

A capsule that carried explosive capabilities.

In one second the world between them burst in a small explosion and the fire that had singed Batman's arm came to life between them.

Deathly afraid of fire, J'onn screamed and let go of his quarry. He raised his arms to protect his face as the fire singed him. Though the capsule was more stun than fire, the terrified Manhunter shifted into his incorporeal form and drifted into the wall, shivering and shaking and floating away from the deadly effects of the blast.

Bah-ruce dropped to the ground hard, his eyes seeing stars and ears ringing but at least he was free of the demon. Gathering up the arrows, bow, and mace again he began to run at full tilt. Every foe he met seemed to be tougher and he was running out of tricks. He had to get out and fast, he thought just as he entered the Justice League meeting room.

The entire room was wider than the infirmary and had more windows, giving the perfect view of the earth. A table was in the center and screens on the walls but he could see no doors.

Cursing his luck, he turned to leave just as a flashing sword came down.

On instinct, Bah-ruce raised the bow to defend himself and watched with dismay as the sword cut cleanly through the weapon. His eyes instantly left the blade to stare at this new foe but he could not help but gape at what he saw.

A woman, an up-right, different from the last trickster stood before him. Her hair was long and shining and black and her body honed as a hunter's. She held a shield and sword and shining bracers and a honey-gold rope on her hip.

And she looked at him with pain and anger in her eyes.

Woman was pretty. Bah-ruce thought. Woman was strong.

Unlike the rest of them, the woman didn't say anything in the language he couldn't really understand. She came out him again with the sword, slashing at his torso. Bah-ruce brought the mace of Carter Hall to bear and blocked the sword swing.

He shouldn't have been surprised but he was when the mace flew out of his hand and embedded itself in the wall. Oh but she was strong! Strength like hers he had felt only in the last demon. He hoped she was not a demon as well. She was too beautiful to be a demon.

Jumping back as she slashed at him again, he pulled out two arrows from the quiver on his back and wielded them like batons. He swung them at her head but the woman raised her shield and took the blows without giving an inch of ground. Bah-ruce hoped the arrows would cause an explosion like last time but they only provided a cold mist that crystalized over the shield with no ill effect to her at all.

Bah-ruce nimbly retreated further and further as she calmly approached until he felt his back hit the cold window overlooking the world. The woman knew he had nowhere to run and so did he. There was only one thing left to do.

Gathering four syringes, two in each hand, he aimed them for his chest. The tips were just inches away from his flesh. They wanted him alive, he knew, else they would have honestly tried to kill him and succeeded. If he killed himself, they would never get what they wanted. His best defense, he knew, was himself.

Wonder Woman stopped dead in her tracks. Her blue eyes scanned him critically. Billy Batson was right, she conceded in her mind. If they were Earth's best defense then the world truly was doomed.

Sheathing her weapons, Diana lifted her hands in surrender. It pained her to see Bruce in such a state but the last thing she wanted was for him to overdose on the potent sedative.

To back up that she meant him no more harm, she turned one of the chairs and sat down. The action seemed to mollify the Neanderthal and he let the syringes fall a little. He stared at her thoughtfully then tossed her a single syringe. He may not have trusted her but he was not looking to kill her.

Diana grabbed the syringe and shook her head. She laid the syringe on the table and stared at him. She wasn't going to give him another chance to pull off another stunt which may actually really hurt someone. As she heard from Atom, all the other members of the Justice League that had run into him were hurt but okay but she could not guarantee that for anyone else. No, this ended with her.

Pulling off her lasso and shield and sword and even her gauntlets she placed them all on the table and crossed her arms.

Bah-ruce arched a brow at the display and slowly he lowered the syringes a little more. Shuffling to one of the windows he pointed earth then he pointed emphatically to himself.

"That is Earth but you're here on the Watchtower." Diana said then looked at him. "You are Bruce."

Bruce. His face visibly perked with recognition. That was a word he knew. It was his word, the one that told him who he was, and the last word the up-right woman in his dreams had said. He tapped his chest again. "Bah-ruce."

"Bah-ruce." Wonder Woman nodded. She put her hands together as if in prayer and then rested her head sideways in a mimicry of sleep. "You… sleep…long time." She then touched her face and opened her eyes wide. "We… wake Bah-ruce up."

Bah-ruce eyed her incredulously. "Bah-ruce?" He said the word for his name but she knew it was a question. He wanted to know why.

"You…." Diana paused a moment and then wrapped her hands around her neck and stuck out her tongue. "Sick." She coughed to add emphasis.

"Pretty sure you're telling him that he was dead, Diana," Atom suddenly commented over the comm.

Only then did she remember that Ray had accessed the cameras but she ignored him. She couldn't risk making Bruce even more suspicious than he was.

"Me." Diana put both her hands to her chest. "Make you, Bah-ruce, better." She extended her hands to him. "Want to help, Bah-ruce, not hurt. Please Bru… Bah-ruce." She slowly gained her feet and held her hand out over the table. "Let help."

Bah-ruce stared at the pretty woman suspiciously. Pretty woman was the only person-demon who stopped fighting him. Pretty woman let her weapons down. She spoke soft and he could see in her eyes she meant him no harm. He didn't know her and yet he felt like he trusted her. It was not an invading feeling in his head like the last demon-thing but one that he felt come from his heart first. Beyond all that, he didn't know how big the place he was at was, didn't know where he was, and he had no food or water. She did not alarm him as the others did. He wanted to believe her.

Maybe he just wanted her.

Whatever the reason, he slowly put the syringes on the table and backed away. This surrender was on his terms, his eyes seemed to say. He hadn't been beaten, he had accepted her strange words. He was going to trust her.

Touched by that trust, Diana slowly walked around the table. He didn't move as she neared him, not even when she wrapped his arms around him in a hug. This must be a sign of trust from pretty woman, he thought and slowly he returned the gesture, a gesture of trust with his arms wrapped around her body in a squeezing hug.

Putting her head on his slumped shoulder she softly said and said, "We're going to help you, Bah-ruce." There was a pause then she added, "I can't believe you beat half the Justice League stark naked."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Shazam cried out through the comm. "He was naked the whole time?!"

"You guys are so never gonna live this down," Black Canary commented dryly.

"All of that can be discussed another day. Good job, Diana," Superman said. "I'm almost done here in Metropolis. Once everyone else is finished, report to the hall of Justice. With any luck we can start working on figuring out just what zapped Batman's body and brain back into the past."


	3. Down in the Cave

3

Bah-ruce knew something was wrong.

Though he felt good, his body as fit as it had ever been, his appetite huge, and his sleep mostly sound, he knew that something dire was amiss. There were no people like him aboard this strange pristinely clean world that floated above the big green and blue orb. Every day he was poked and prodded and tested and they put him to sleep often so they could do more strange rituals to him in big shiny caves. Some days they argued with each other, using words that he couldn't understand but what told him most of all things were wrong was that they always seemed troubled, especially when they walked into the room with all the beeping machines. Worry constantly etched their faces when they looked at him. They weren't scared of him, he knew, they were scared _for_ him.

For that reason alone, Bah-ruce endured their strange words and their rituals. He would have sooner have left the beeping room, and he had at least ten times though they hated when he did, but they genuinely seemed as if they wanted to help. The pretty woman seemed to want to help him most of all.

Sitting on the edge of the sick-bed, his feet dangling off the ground, Bah-ruce watched the pretty woman as she looked at the man in the red and blue pelts fussing over his body. She leaned next to the door and her arms and ankles were crossed so that she didn't fidget. She fidgeted a lot when she was worried. For days now he had watched her and practically knew every tick of her body. He couldn't help but watch her, to observe her going about her day. She was pretty and strong and he trusted her.

"Alright, almost done, Bah-ruce," the blue and red pelted man dotting over him said, knocking away his thoughts on the pretty woman. The man wielded a flat slab in his hand that beeped and a bright red light came of the end, washing over his body.

Bah-ruce growled a warning as he closed his eyes and lifted a hand to protect his vision from the bright light. The man in the brightly colored pelt always spoke slowly and gently to him but he did not trust him like he trusted the pretty woman. He had stuck him with the quills too many times for trust.

Once the scan was completed the slab gave a chirp and the man looked down at the magic slab. His face, Bah-ruce wasn't surprised, frowned. A sigh fled his lips and he shook his head sadly. "Negative."

Though Bah-ruce didn't know what many words meant, but that word "neg-ah-tiv" was one that had been said in the beeping room all too often. It meant that they wouldn't let him leave, it meant they didn't know what was wrong.

Roaring in rage, Bah-ruce snatched the lightweight slab form the man's hand and tossed it at one of the monitors. The tablet when flying through the air like a Frisbee and one of the edges smashed into the monitor's screen causing a shower of sparks and electrical buzzing. The entire system tweeted and beeped in malfunction then all the screens went dark and the beeping finally stopped.

Neg-ah-tiv, Bah-ruce thought angrily as he took a grain of satisfaction in killing the beeping things, he hated that word.

~8~

"Way to shoot the messenger," Atom remarked dryly as he watched the machines spark and twitch as the last jolts of electricity when through the wires. He stood unphased by the outburst, more than used to it now. Bah-ruce already had wrecked nearly five millions dollars' worth of medical equipment in one week. His frustrated tantrums were always costly.

Not turning his back on Batman this time, Atom slowly stepped to Bruce's right and, while keeping the Neanderthal in the corner of his eye, looked to Diana. His gaze was one of sorrowful helplessness and he held out his as if he had nothing to show for his efforts. "Before our slope-browed friend here trashed another tablet, I saw what I saw the first time I ran the tests, Wonder Woman – nothing out of the ordinary."

Forcing away a black cloud of despair, Diana shook her head. "One of these tests is giving you the wrong data," she returned flatly.

"I don't think so, Wonder Woman," Ray sighed dourly. "I've run every test twice over."

Diana pushed from the wall and marched over purposefully to the good doctor. "Well run them again," she demanded in a low, dangerous growl.

On the bed, Bah-ruce growled as well and clenched the sides of the bed. Every muscle was tested and ready to spring. His blue eyes were pinned to the Atom, telling the doctor if he made one false move, he would pounce on him like a tiger. And this time, he wasn't going to lose him.

Ignoring their anger, Atom turned to the sparking mess of trashed equipment and began to salvage what he could. "That wouldn't do any good, Diana. These test have near one hundred percent accuracy and I don't believe the first round of tests we put him through were wrong. We've waited a whole week for any ill effects and none have showed themselves." He raised a hand towards Batman as if pleading for her to see. "Hell, look with your eyes, Wonder Woman, he's perfectly healthy."

"He's a _caveman_," she retorted emphatically.

"A perfectly _healthy_ caveman," replied Atom. He pulled out a tangle of red and blue colored wires and let out another sigh. "I don't know what to tell you, Wonder Woman. I've got DNA samples and I'll keep running tests but that's the best I can do."

"I've gotten the same answer from J'onn and the best we can do is not good enough," the Amazonian declared, using her anger to hide her fear and worry. "He still can't crack the last message sent and we have no leads. There's not a security camera that can even give us a clue as to what went down. You know as well as I do Atom, that the longer we have nothing the colder the real trail gets."

Even as the last word came out, Diana swallowed, forcing a swelling lump of emotion back down her throat. That was a saying Batman used all the time in particularly hard cases. Had anyone else been turned into a caveman he would have been the closest to solving the mystery. He would have probably already had them turned back to their normal selves. He would have used everything at his disposal to care for his friends because as aloof and grim as the Dark Knight was, he cared deeply for them all.

Atom nodded to the sad truth in her words. Each one of them knew that particular fact by heart now. "I know, Diana but demanding to re-do tests won't do him any good."

"What will do him good, then?" she demanded to know. "By Hera what can we do!?"

"That's enough, Wonder Woman," Superman interjected sternly.

Both doctor and Amazonian turned to the door and Superman walked in. From the bed, Bah-ruce let out another growl and came to his feet. Moving silently between Wonder Woman and Atom, he stood with his back as tall as straight as he could make it and his hard face staring the man of steel down. He almost looked like the same old Bruce when he was making a concerted effort to keep his back straight but the illusion was ruined as he sniffed Superman's crest. "Bah-ruce," he grunted with finality and turned around, walking towards Diana. When he reached her he squatted down again in his normal pose, his eyes still glaring hard at the man of steel.

Superman watched him with a brow arched then looked to Diana and Ray. "Is this how he says hello?"

"No, it's how he says he's going to tolerate your presence," Ray revealed with all seriousness.

Superman blinked down at Batman. "I'm… honored?"

Atom couldn't help but smile. "Honestly, you should be. The last time he saw Green Arrow he hog tied in the mess hall and put a plate of creamed corn on his head."

"From what I hear, Ollie had it coming," Superman chuckled. It was no secret that Oliver Queen chaffed the most at having been beaten by Neanderthal Batman. Thrice now he had tried to "wrangle" the wild Batman and had failed.

"Are you both done swapping stories of prideful men or can we get back to helping Bruce?" Diana cut in, her tone like a knife.

"Bah-ruce," Bah-ruce corrected her.

A tired sigh echoed out from the man of steel. "Easy, Diana, we were just trying to lighten the mood. It's been a hard week for all of us."

"A hard week with no results," she parried. "Neither Atom nor J'onn are making any headway. It doesn't even feel like they're trying." Part of her knew that wasn't a fair statement to make but it didn't seem right that there was no progress made either. Why weren't they even getting close to the bottom of the matter to make Bruce better?

"Atom and J'onn are trying their hardest, don't berate them for giving it their best shot. It's a villain's fault, not theirs. We know you're worried about Bruce, we all are."

"Then why aren't we getting results?" she asked, her voice quieter and filled with despair.

Superman shook his head sadly and drifted towards the crouching Bruce. "I wish I knew," he said, looking down at his quiet, curious friend. The Neanderthal Bruce sniffed him once again then gave a huff that seemed to say he wasn't impressed with the man of steel and settled himself even closer to Diana. He was protective of her, Superman noted, and he guessed if he were to make even the slightest threatening hint towards her Batman would explode into action. She was the only one Bruce trusted, they all knew, that's why she was lashing out. She felt guilty about not being able to help him when he was putting all of his faith in her.

Shaking his head he forced a hopeful smile to his glum face. "There may be no answer to this yet but is some good news right now I think all of us could use, Gotham is doing well. No one seems to be on to the fact that Batman is missing. Nightwing has taken up the Batsuit and so far no one has caught on it's not the real Batman. Commissioner Gordon knows of course but that's all."

"Gotham vermin normally brag to no end when they manage to get one over on Batman, anyone boasting of putting Batman down yet even if people don't believe them?" Diana queried.

Superman shook his head. "None. Which is probably a blessing. All hell might've broken loose if they did. You know how Gotham gets when they think Batman is gone."

"Yeah, last time they destroyed three bridges, two monuments, and thought Killer Croc was an Egyptian god," Atom commented.

The heroes, even surly Diana, could not help but chuckle lowly at the memory. No one had gotten killed but that had been a rough weekend for the Batfamily. So much so that Alfred had "mistakenly" butt-dialed the Teen Titans while Nightwing was explaining the magnitude of the situation. He would have called the Justice League but earth's finest heroes had been on Apokolips. Once Batman returned from the mission and found out what happened he'd been extra grouchy for a whole two weeks!

Letting the last chuckle fall, Superman looked over at his slouch shouldered friend and gave a small sigh. "Why don't you take him home, Diana. I don't think he needs to be up here. He obviously doesn't like it."

"Please do, he's already cost himself millions in medical equipment by trashing the place twice," Atom held a few computer chips in his hand and shook his head. "I'll be sending Wayne Enterprises the bill for this mess."

Diana placed a hand on Bruce's soft, dark hair and let her fingers tangle in his locks. "I was thinking about that myself. Perhaps him being around things he's more familiar with can help him. I've already contacted Alfred and unless the Justice League needs me, I'll be watching over him."

"Alright, I'll get the transporter ready but please be careful, Diana. Home might have an adverse effect on him, and if it does bring him back here. We don't want any more harm befalling Bruce," Superman cautioned.

"Bah-ruce," both Wonder Woman and Batman corrected simultaneously.

~8~

Light shimmered all around Bah-ruce as the teleporter zapped them thousands of miles down to earth. Though he kept his face hard to hide his fear, he clung to Diana's hand with a vice like grip. As soon as the magic started it seemed to come to a stop and what once had been a shiny room with round disks on the floor was now a black cave.

Above him stalactites as big as trees hung from a massive, black ceiling. Bats squealed and flapped and hung upside down from ledges. The sound of rushing water reached his ears and the cave was damply cool.

In another part of the massive cave, nearer to the teleporters, was a large platform and beyond that was a well-lit section of the cave that looked closer to the place he had just been. There were more beeping slabs and winking lights but there were also curiosities that he could barely believe. There was one large round stone with a face on it, a dinosaur, huge rectangles with ensigns on them and upside down hooks all in green. In front of all those things there were rows of pelts levitating in ice and walkways that seemed to have lights coming from under them. The walkways were lined with rows of hooks that carried assortments of strange ropes that fit around the waist and cloaks fitted on pegs.

The two worlds of dismal guano smeared cavern and clean, brightly lit strangeness mingled oddly in Bah-ruce's head but there was a comfort to the place as if he had been there before. Home, he realized, it felt like home.

At least the dark, dismal, bat infested cave part did.

Letting go of Diana's hand, Bah-ruce knuckled his way down the metal stairs from the transporter and jumped against one of the rough walls. Strong, dexterous fingers caught an edge and his toes caught another. With a grunt and a massive leap, he scaled the rocky wall as nimbly as a monkey and perched himself on a large dark ledge. His hands rapped against the stone and felt the grainy texture and to his delight he found that all was rock. Beautiful, real, not-shiny rock.

"Bah-ruce please get down from there," Diana sighed in exasperation as she floated from the teleporter.

Bah-ruce snorted in a way that was an emphatic no. Instead he gazed down at her and admired how she had changed since she had decided to take him from the strange shiny place in the blackness.

No longer, Bah-ruce noted, did she look like the woman in the bright pelt that didn't cover her legs or arms. Her black hair was pulled back in a long tail and she now wore pelts that looked nothing like her other attire on the strange world. Instead, they were pelts that came down each leg and covered her torso and arms. Small, shiny rocks held the torso pelt together and over one shoulder was a bag. The pelts were muted colors like a deer's skin and looked so totally unlike the colored pelts she wore in the other place that he could barely tell they were the same woman.

Of course, like her change of clothes, they had tried to put the pelts of the legs on him too but after an hour of fighting with him they knew the pelts weren't going to happen. He didn't like to feel constrained in their tight pelts so he only wore a strip of white cloth he had taken from the lightening up-right's cloak and used that to cover his privates.

That being said, though he could not tolerate their tight pelts, they looked good on pretty woman. Nothing in his mind could make her not pretty.

After admiring her a second more, Bah-ruce smiled widely and tapped the stone again with his knuckles inviting her to join him.

Laughter clear and sweet bubbled up from her throat and she smiled softly at him. "You seem to have made yourself quite at home, Bah-ruce."

He couldn't understand her words but he was more than smart enough to get the gist of what she said and grunted. He rapped the stone harder in approval. "Bah-ruce."

"Oh dear, I certainly hope he hasn't taking a liking to the cave, I had just turned down his bed," a voice from the top of a long flight of stairs near the shiny equipment declared in a crisp British accent.

The stairs were quite a distance away, giving Bah-ruce little to ascertain about the intruder. He was slender, that much he knew, but the rest of him was cloaked in the shadows at the top of the faraway staircase. That not matter though, Bah-ruce knew, he could take down intruder anyway.

Muscles bunching and shoulders hunching defensively, he was already planning a route over the rough stone to reach the man but the pretty woman was there in an instant, her hand on his shoulder and her extraordinary strength holding him back. "It alright…," she spoke in the slow way she did when she really wanted him to understand. Putting a hand to her heart, she cupped it then stretched her cupped hand out to the man on the stairs. "Him Alfred. Alfred friend. We happy…." She paused and made her fingers widen her mouth into a large smile. "We happy see Alfred."

Bah-ruce snorted incredulously but looked back at the man who made his way down the stairs with a tray in hand. A shiny dome sat on the top of the tray but by the smells wafting through the air something delicious was underneath the shiny dome. His mouth watered even though they had fed him something before he left. Whatever was under the shiny dome he wanted _that_.

"I hope my presence hasn't alarmed him, Miss Prince." Alfred stopped at the base of the wall where the ledge protruded out and looked up to them. "I brought his favorite dinner: spaghetti and meatballs. I had hoped such a meal would trigger his olfactory senses and jog a memory or two." Though Alfred was always the polite, unflappable butler, he pained for Bruce more than any. He had raised him like a son and seeing him in such a state as he was made his heart ache.

Diana smiled for Alfred's sake. She wouldn't let him catch wind of the despair in the Justice League or how hopeless everything seemed. "I'm sure he'll love it, Alfred. I think he was just surprised. He doesn't take to seeing new people very well." Looking down at the hard staring Bruce, Diana gave him a gentle push towards the edge. "Friend. Alfred friend. Say hello."

For long minutes Bah-ruce ignored her. He sat ponderously like a living gargoyle, staring at the nearly bald, skinny up-right. Now that he was close a measure of familiarity clicked in his mind. He felt like he knew this up-right as if he had always known him. He wasn't alarmed any more of his presence, he seemed to be part of the cave, like it's heart and soul. He looked at him with steady eyes that hurt but ones that Bah-ruce knew he had seen before. But where? Why?

Pushing the thoughts away, he grunted and finally jumped down from his perch in front of Alfred. Standing, he sniffed the domed tray then leaned in and sniffed the man. He raised one hand and lifted up Alfred's chin. There, under the clean shaven chin was a weal about four inches long that few knew was there. But he knew. He didn't know how he knew but he knew.

"Af," Bah-ruce said almost in a cough. "Af-rud."

Tears gathered in Alfred's eyes but he blinked them away. "Yes, master Bruce. Af-rud."

"Bah-ruce," Bah-ruce returned with a smile that Alfred knew so well. "Bah-ruce." He pointed to himself then stuck a finger in Alfred's chest. "Af-rud."

Pushing the tray out of Alfred's hands, Bah-ruce wrapped his arms in a tight hug around Alfred's body. This was the sign of trust the pretty woman taught him and thought he didn't know why, he knew he trusted this Af-rud with his life.

Alfred wrapped his hands around a stoop shouldered Bruce and Diana had to look away, tears in her eyes, as the dedicated Butler cried for what had happened to the man he had raised like his own son.

Once all the tears were shed and all the sniffles tucked away, Alfred dabbed the corners of his eyes with a white cloth and looked down at the mess. "Heavens, that was quite unbecoming of me. I should be grateful that he isn't dead or worse and now I've made such a mess. Luckily, I make it a rule to always have extra in case of disaster or company." He looked at Diana with a brow nearly imperceptibly arched. "Shall you be joining us for dinner tonight, Miss Prince?"

"Not tonight Alfred," Diana shook her head as she drifted down to the floor to join them. "I've got some digging of my own to do around Gotham. I want to see if anyone knows or saw anything that could help us."

"Very well Miss Prince, if you insist on your investigation tonight I'll leave a warmed tray in your room. Third floor left wing, two doors down to the right," the dedicated butler proclaimed in his ever dignified manner.

Diana opened her mouth to thank him with the sound of hungry munching and slurps invaded the air around them. Both looked down in horror to find the Neanderthal Bruce scooping up fallen spaghetti and stuffing meatballs in his mouth.

Alfred gave a weary sigh as he looked down at he changed Bruce. "Do you think I should even try to get him upstairs or will he break all the good china and start a fire in the middle of the master bedroom?"

"The latter I think," Diana replied with a faint laugh. "Perhaps you should just let him stay down here. He seems to like it alright."

Alfred cleared his throat and straightened his necktie imperiously. "It is most undignified but, I suppose you're right." Fearlessly he rapped Bruce across the shoulders to stop him from his unseemly gorging. "That's quite enough Master Bah-ruce we do not eat off the floor. Come along and I'll get you a fresh plate."

"Bah-ruce," Bah-ruce grunted through a mouthful of spaghetti.

"Don't take that tone with me Master Bah-ruce," Alfred scolded him. Catching him by his ear as if he were a child, he began to pull him away from the mess on the floor.

"Bah-ruuuuuce," the Neanderthal whined as he was dragged away from the tasty meal. His arms strained back to try and grab the last of the delicious red food on the ground but the skinny up-right had already taken him out of range. Why did Af-rud have to take him away from such a feast? He knew better than to fight him though. He would never hurt Af-rud a part of him seemed to say. Now that he knew who it was he would protect him with his life.

Smiling, Diana watched Alfred haul the meal-distressed Bruce away and fought away laughter. "Good luck Alfred!" she called out to him.

"And to you to Miss Prince!" Alfred returned, his voice echoing in the cave.

Once they were far enough away a frown found its way back to Diana's face. The little space of happiness was quickly fading, bringing in the cold anger she kept tight in her chest back to the surface. She would find who ever had done this to Bruce and make them pay.

Turning away she floated towards one of the Batcave's many exits all the while taking off her dress suit to reveal her Wonder Woman costume beneath. Unlike what she left the rest of the Justice League believe she wasn't just going to babysit Bruce. There was no need to be Diana Prince tonight. She wasn't in Gotham to be a diplomat or a proponent of peace or a warden on the transformed Bruce Wayne. Tonight she was on a path of war and woe betide those that stood in her way.

~8~

"Just sit there Master Bah-ruce," Alfred directly calmly, pointing to a large, overstuffed chair near the Batcomputer. "I'll be right down with another tray. Don't touch anything." He paused just long enough to mime pressing buttons and shook his head, letting Bah-ruce know that was something he should not do.

Squatting on the chair, Bah-ruce nodded in understanding and seemed to make himself comfortable. The skinny up-right seemed satisfied with the gesture and with a small sprint ran to a box gouged into the stone wall. He clicked a button on a wall and the box opened, then he stepped inside and clicked another. "Only a moment Master Bah-ruce," he raised one finger. "Only a moment."

Bah-ruce watched as the doors closed and once he was certain the skinny up-right had disappeared he slid off the chair and knuckled his way over to the Batcomputer. The thing, an idol, he decided was huge, nearly topping the cavernous ceiling. The bright picture in the idols wide, rectangular eye was partitioned into dozens of squares each showing a different dream, Bah-ruce guessed. There was one where a boy in a bright pelt was swinging off a line and kicking a man, whose face was covered, with a foot. Another image showed men with the shiny sticks from his dreams cornering a man with another shiny stick that lay on the ground. One of the strange pelted men went over and tied the man's hands together with a piece of metal rope and then stuffed him into what had to have been a metal animal. Bright lights whirled from the top of the beast the creature set off on a run.

Bah-ruce didn't understand any of it, but he felt as if he should.

Huffing in despondent frustration, Bah-ruce looked down at the console of the computer. The whole console was scattered with pieces of leaves that held pictures on them. He ran his large fingers around the pictures and stopped at an up-right man dressed in a black pelt that covered everything but his head and hands. He was smiling and a woman was on each arm. He seemed to be leaving some sort of feast and though Bah-ruce could understand nothing of the picture the man looked unsettlingly familiar.

"I'm not surprised you didn't stay in the chair Master Bah-ruce. I thought I would be disappointed but I am in fact relieved. You really are in there somewhere. Always going off and doing different than told," Alfred commented as he exited the elevator.

Bah-ruce slowly turned around, unabashed for having disobeyed the skinny up-right Af-rud. He felt as if he were home and when he was home he could go wherever he wanted. The strange thought of being home again tickled at the edge of his mind but was briefly tucked away as his eyes fell to another tray resting in Af-rud's hands. Another dome sat atop the tray but the same delicious scents wafted from beneath.

Bah-ruce's mouth watered again but he stayed over at the computer. "Bah-ruce," he said seriously.

"Quite sir," Alfred said crisply. "You did pay for it, I know, but I just don't want you to break it so you won't have to pay for it _again_." Walking over to a table next to the large chair, the dedicated Butler sat the tray down and stood with his hands clasped together in front of him. "Seeing that you don't seem to have broken anything for now, will you come and eat?"

Bah-ruce grunted, understanding that Af-rud wanted him to eat but turned back to the computer and looked at the pages on the console.

"Well at least I can rest easy knowing some things haven't changed," Alfred commented with a sigh. Bruce had been like this when he hadn't been a Neanderthal. He could barely pull him away from the Batcomputer when he thought there was a case to be solved or some clue he was missing.

Bah-ruce looked down at the pictures again, unable to take his gaze from the man in the pelts. "Bah-ruce?"

Curious now, the immaculate butler neared the console and looked over Bruce's shoulder just to see what had so grabbed the Neanderthal's attention. "Why sir, that is you." He tapped Bruce's shoulder once then tapped the newspaper clipping in front of him. "Bah-ruce." Hiding a smile by turning back towards the tray and chair, he sniffed imperiously as if the photo was some affront to his employer. "It was, of course, snapped by the paparazzi on one of your less decorous nights on the town. Billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne seen on the town with Russian Fashionista twins at the Iceberg Longue. Quite ironically it was also the same night the Penguin's drug smuggling ring was broken up. Fortuitous wouldn't you say so, sir?"

Even though Bah-ruce couldn't understand much of what the skinny up-right said he did understand the taps and the correlation to the picture. That was himself, a different self. One that didn't slouch unless he hid it well and one that didn't have the ledged brow or walked on his knuckles. This was him, but… not.

And if this was the real him, then who was he?

"Af-rud?" Bah-ruce said the name quizzically, causing the butler to turn around again. "Bah-…. Bah-ruce?" He waved one hand through the air indicating the computer the cave and everything within. "Bah-ruce?" he asked again, pressing his knuckles to his chest and then waving his arm to indicate cave once more.

Alfred's eyes searched him, regarding the Neanderthal Bruce him with surprise. "Why yes sir. This," he paused and indicated the cave, "Bah-ruce's."

The cave was his then, Bah-ruce understood, but besides the odd feeling of being at home, he had no memory of the place. If this truly was his home then why did everything seem so frightening and large and foreign? Why didn't he understand?

Frowning thoughtfully, Bah-ruce pushed away from the computer, knuckled past the chair and the tray, and came to one of the ice-crystals holding the pelts. He looked up at the pelt within and regarded it intently. It was all black with the icon of a bat at the chest. There was a hood and a cape and a rope for the waist. If all of the cave was his had this been his as well? Was he like the bright pelt wearers from the other place?

"Bah-ruce?" the Neanderthal queried quizzically, more to himself than to Alfred. He slowly came to his full height and looked at himself in the ice. His eyes rested perfectly in the eye holes of the cowl, mirroring his face back at him as if he were wearing the hood. Everything was so similar to the face on the paper yet the differences he could see directly. This was all familiar and yet still strange and wrong and he couldn't figure out why.

Bowing his head in defeat the Neanderthal pressed a knuckled fist to the glass, wanting more than anything in the world to reach inside and pull out the person he felt trapped on the other side. "Bah-ruce," he sighed sadly.

"No sir." Alfred's hand rested on his shoulder while the other tilted his head back up. "This is not Bah-ruce," he explained with a hint of pride in his voice. "This, is Batman."

The Neanderthal looked over his shoulder at the skinny up-right. "Bah-ruce?"

"No," Alfred rectified with stern kindness. "This Batman. Batman. _Batman_. Bah-ruce Batman."

The name meant nothing to him, even though he knew it should have. He could tell by looking into Alfred's eyes the name had great power. It was like his name, a second name that everyone in the sky seemed to have had. This was his second name? Yes, a voice in his head seemed to say. Yes this was his second name. This was a part of who he was, a part of who he had been.

A part of the person he needed to become again.

Looking back to the ice and the pelts, Bah-ruce narrowed his eyes and the ice mirrored the image inside the hood of the pelt. "Ba-mun. Buh-ruce Ba-mun."

"Indeed sir, indeed. Or rather, you will be again." Alfred pat him on the shoulder then gently directed him towards the chair. "Now if you please, sit down and eat."

Buh-ruce took one last look at the pelt and ice and let himself be led away. Af-rud made him sit down in the chair and eat but even though he gobbled the worm-like meal down with a relish his mind was working like never before. Ba-mun was who he had been, the other Buh-ruce was who he had been too and he needed to be that again. That was probably why the pretty woman had gone out – to hunt for answers.

However, they were treating him like a cub. They didn't trust him and someone was always with him, watching over him. They probably also had no idea what was wrong with him, else he would have been turned back by now. If pretty woman's leaving was anything to go by, it was a good deduction that they were out of options.

Chewing both noisily and thoughtfully on the prospects of his new found revelations, Bah-ruce stared down as he ate, appearing to be consumed with the delight of the meal. There was a lot to think about and also a lot of delicious red worms to eat.

Thinking only that the need for food consumed Bruce, Alfred gave a sigh of relief and even managed a little smile. "There, you seemed to have calmed down quite a bit. Finish up. I'll be right back with blankets and pillows." He lifted a finger in caution and pointed back to the computer. "No more glow-y screen." He moved his hand back and waggled the finger in front of Bruce's face. "No."

"Bah-ruce." Bah-ruce nodded in acknowledgment as he slurped on noodles.

"Good man." Alfred nodded in satisfaction and departed.

Bah-ruce continued to eat minutes after Alfred had departed, then, when he was sure the man was nowhere near the cave, he jumped down to the floor and raced towards the shining walkway that had all the hooks for the strange waist ropes. Quickly and quietly, he pulled down five of the utility belts and tossed them over his neck. When that was done, he knuckled over to one of the cloaks hanging on a peg and took that too.

Giving one cautious look to the elevator, just to make sure the skinny up-right wasn't walking in, Bah-ruce turned in the direction he had seen the pretty woman leave. He took only one step when suddenly he stopped as if frozen. Something was missing. For a quick moment he pondered what it could have been, then he snapped his fingers as epiphany reached him.

Knuckling back over to the chair and tray, Bah-ruce scooped the red sauce from the meal and smeared it in the shape of a bat on his loin cloth. Satisfied at the drippy mark that looked like a bat, Bah-ruce headed for the exit of the Batcave, his heart and mind steeled with willful purpose. He was Ba-mun and if anyone was going to figure out what had changed him, it was going to have to be himself.

~8~

"I sincerely hope you don't mind faux-cotton blankets Master Bah-ruce," Alfred said as he exited the elevator. Arms filled with white pillows and gray blankets he walked nearly blind down the ramp to the Batcompter. "I know this is not our best linens but I will not have my spotless blankets with Irish wool filling be subjected to bat guano and grime," he declared as he dropped the pillows and blankets on the floor.

Taking in a deep, satisfied breath, Alfred looked towards where Bruce should have been, only to see the empty chair. "Master Bah-ruce?" He looked up to his left and right, hoping to catch him asleep on one of the ledges. "Master Bah-ruce?" His eyes slowly drifted down, trying to find the Neanderthal when his gaze fell upon red tomato sauce finger streaks on the floor. The prints started at the chair and snaked a path all the way up to the walkways that held the utility belts.

Utility belts that were now missing.

"Oh," Alfred gasped softly, his mind slowly grasping what had occurred. The stilled shock only lasted for a minute before the butler flung himself at the computer and began to scramble to pick up contact with the nearest hero. Caveman Batman was not ready for Gotham, or rather, he thought ironically as he brought up a list of heroes in the vicinity, Gotham City was not ready for him!


	4. A Dark Knight on the Town

4

The dark, chill night welcomed Bah-ruce like a long lost friend. Cold wind whispered through the hibernating trees, trying to shake the last of the brown and orange leaves down from the nearly barren limbs and crunchy leaves already on the ground swirled against the zephyr's touch. A deer's hooves crunched over the leaves and the rustle of moles and vice could be heard in the underbrush but Bah-ruce made not a sound along the long swaths of land separating Wayne Manor and its properties from Gotham City. In the dark of the night under a cloudy sky where neither moon nor star could be seen, the Neanderthal was in his element, his entire being focused on the hunt ahead of him.

Before, he had been scrubbed clean and stood out like a sore thumb amidst the modern day machines and the suits. Now, in the dark forest his strong face and body were smeared with mud and dirt for camouflage and the utility belts he had stolen were strapped around his chest like bandoliers while the cloak was tucked closely around his muscled frame. Truly he had become the hunter his body screamed that he was. Now all he needed was this prey.

Knuckling soundlessly over the land, the hunting Bah-ruce truly had no idea where he was headed but his course was more or less a straight one, leading dead south. Though that direction had not been his first choice, the location of Wayne Manor made any other direction an impossibility. Wayne Manor sat on a hill with a cliff to its back. Below was nothing but rocks and waters and to the left and right the same applied until he was off the hill and the cliff. Once Wayne Manor lay far behind and unable to seen on foot, he could have gone in any direction but decided to stay close to a winding path of strange stone that snaked its way from the large stone hut.

Some sort of creature must have used the smooth path he figured, something big and roaring. Just as he thought of what sort of animal could use such a trail, the roar of such a beast reached his ears. Disappearing against the rough bark of a wide pine tree, he crouched still as a stone waiting for the beast to past.

The first thing that appeared were the creatures glowing yellow eyes, nearly making him go still with fear but he was well hid and the beast continued on without even a moment's hesitation. Indeed, the creature had been going faster than any animal he had ever seen. Perhaps, he wondered, even being out in the open the creature would not have seen him.

Always cautious, Bah-ruce waited a minute and then a minute more in case another beast roared down the trail. When nothing came he nearly abandoned his hiding spot until a familiar roar hit his ears and glowing yellow eyes form the opposite direction began to approach.

Cursing his luck, the Neanderthal clung tighter to the tree, forcing himself once more still as stone as he waited for the beast to pass.

This time, however, the beast came to a slow crawl and stopped.

The hum of the beast was close now, purring like a large cat. Both eyes of yellow were still straight ahead and he wondered if the beast, could or would move its head then, to his surprise, the beast opened and an up-right stepped out.

Of course! Bah-ruce moaned inwardly to himself. This was the beast that up-rights rode inside. He had seen one in the cave but that had been a different type of animal. This beast was big, long, rectangular, and seemed to be missing its back, a whole different beast from the other.

Still, he chastised himself, he should have known but such chastisements and grievances at himself were useless now. Now the beast was there and the up-right was fully disgorged from the insides.

The up-right came from the opposite side of the beast and passed the unblinking yellow eyes, giving Bah-ruce a good look at the person approaching. The up-right was a man, dressed in long navy colored pelts that looked rich and expensive. He stood there in silence for only a moment before a torch suddenly brightened in his hand, shining a single large beam of light towards the barren trees.

"H-hello?" the shadowed man called out into the night. "Is anyone out there? Do you need help?"

The man looked like he didn't want to move, then, on a surge of bravery, he took a step closer, his light slowly moving left and right. "Hello?"

"You're tempting fate, Jerry!" another voice, this time a woman's, called out from the beast. "I don't know why you were so adamant about coming back this way. Anybody out here on such a creepy night deserves what they get."

"Ah don't be that way Brenda," the man wielding the light replied. "If someone's in trouble then they may need our help."

The girl in the beast, Brenda, scoffed. Bah-ruce couldn't see her but he could clearly imagine her rolling her eyes. "You Keystone City boys, have no idea how Gotham works. If someone's in trouble you _don't_ stop to help. You keep on moving and hope that they're not tied in with one of the pyschos or the gangs. Now c'mon Jerry, stop bein' stupid and get back in the truck."

"Just a second," Jerry replied as he neared the edge of the trees. He waved his flashlight closer to Bah-ruce's location.

"Jerry you come back this instant or the dates off. You can take me home right now!" shrieked Brenda.

That seemed to be alright with Jerry for he ignored her shrieks. Closer and closer his light moved to the pine until at last the light sat there at the base of the tree. Only a few leaves from a nearby oak sat there, caught between the base of the tree and two upraised roots.

"I guess you were right, Brenda," Jerry sighed with both relief and disappointment. "It wasn't anything at all."

Brenda snorted from the beast. "Well I hope your little adventure was worth it, I want to go home right now. I'm not spending any more time with a guy who doesn't know how to mind his own business. In this city it'll get you killed."

The young man shrugged and clicked off the light as he turned around. His body once more became illuminated in the eyes of the beast then he hopped into the other side of the strange metal creature and the beast began the downwards trek down the trail.

Had he just casually looked into the back of the truck he might have noticed the Neanderthal laying down in the metal bed, waiting for the creature to take him to its lair. If such mighty creatures could be tamed then, he supposed, he could get answers from the place that tamed them.

~8~

Gotham City hit Bah-ruce like a tidal wave.

One moment he was bouncing and jolting in the back of the truck, darkness surrounding him and the only sound the wind and the roar of the beast, and in the next moment he was thrust into a world of light and roaring sound. All around him the noise was a jumble of music, thumping beats, curses, and, honks, and roaring beasts while above him lights in all shades and bearing strange symbols flashed through his gaze.

Forcing down his terror, Bah-ruce managed to sit up a little in the truck bed and peek his head over the back of the truck. The world was now of strange metal and smog. Men and woman hung close to burning fire pits while others walked the streets in pelt much to unfit for the weather. They smoked and tried to cajole other passersby's, with lustful smiles and crooking fingers. Others were simply roaming the streets, tall, heads high while others seemed to skulk with paper bags in their hands.

Bah-ruce had never seen anything so sad.

Even as the thought entered his mind, the truck came to a slow stop, almost as if to let him see the pitiful-state of the up-rights. Bah-ruce wondered why they were stopped but he could only see a red light above them. He looked into the back window of the truck, trying to ascertain if anything was wrong with the two up-rights within but they looked perfectly fine. The male was looking out of the rolled up window at the sorry state of the up-rights outside while the female was leaning on the other side of the cab pouting, her arms crossed.

Her head wasn't even turned towards the window but instead more to the front. Her eyes were staring up at a small piece of glass at the top of the cab, a piece of glass, Bah-ruce suddenly realized, he could see himself in just as good as she could.

"JERRY THERE'S A CRAZY MAN IN THE BACK OF THE TRUCK!" The shriek even made Bah-ruce wince.

"What're you talking about?" Jerry snapped his head around to look out the back of the trucks window but there was no one there.

Bah-ruce watched from a dark alley as the truck, with Brenda still screaming inside, sped away, the light above still red. He would never understand the workings of this place, but he would have to be more cautious next time. He didn't want to be seen and the up-right female was very loud. She would have drawn attention to him instantly had he not moved the second her mouth opened.

No, he could not afford attention right now. Since he was once more in a strange new land once more he had to be ever vigilant, ever alert if he was to observe this strange place and see if he could find any clues as to how he had become who he was.

Stalking down the dark alleyway, Ba-mun wrinkled his nose at the scent or rotting garbage and human waste. For a place so strange, the stench was revolting. The alley led to a dead end with nothing but a brick wall at the back but the cut-off didn't bother Ba-mun in the slightest. Leaping onto a garbage bin, he vaulted himself up, grabbing onto the end of a fire escape and began to climb. Every part of the strange world seemed to offer a foothold for his Neanderthal body. Rusted pipes and windowsills and stone ledges all aided the Neanderthal until he finally came to the roof. At any other instance he would have been looking for a new place to climb but like in the strange place he had woken up he was blown away by the sheer magnitude of the strange world.

Lights and smog stretched out in all directions for miles and miles and miles. Huts taller than the tallest tree pierced the sky and clouds shrouded their tips in foggy mystery. Blimps slowly crawled across the sky, light swaying to and fro beneath them, making Ba-mun think they were giant, faceless whales. Huge tracks resting on giant beams curved over the city and all was sound and stench.

Gotham.

Though Ba-mun didn't know the name of the city, this place too felt familiar and that was a good thing. At least he would not feel so much like a stranger in a strange land.

Taking a deep breath, the Neanderthal braced himself, took a few steps back, then, bracing himself, broke out into a run. Heavy feet barely met the edge of the building before he launched himself over to the next. With an expertise he didn't know he had, Ba-mun hit the next building at a knuckled run. A smirk came to his masked face as he continued his momentum moving faster and faster. As the next building approached he launched himself toward a window, grabbed the edge and pulled himself up to the top, hardly ever slowing.

A rightness filled Ba-mun as he leapt and swung from building to building. He had done this before and he had enjoyed it every time. There was something freeing about being on the rooftops, watching everything below, few ever knowing that you were there.

Joyfully he raced and climbed, moving in no particular direction he could ascertain. So far his feelings had been the only thing to clue him into the vaguest thing close to a memory so he trusted that, letting his senses and feelings run free.

For blocks and blocks he raced the rooftops, never thinking of slowing down until he noticed the buildings growing scarcer and further apart and a wide spread of water before him. Slowing to a stop atop a large metallic building, Ba-mun eased to the edge and sniffed. The air was different than that of the louder part of the strange place, smelling instead of brine and standing water rather than noxious smog. Below him, harsh, unshaded lights winked and fizzed, providing luminance to the entrances of warehouses.

Each building looked empty and locked tight, all save for one on the far left side of the docks. The building looked far older the others around it and was built of stone rather than any shiny metal. Two metal beasts, huge and full looking, stood rumbling outside an open door while men in masks loaded them up with crates. Ten up-rights, Ba-mun estimated, were simply marching around outside, and more were on the rooftops, metal tubes in their hands like he had seen in his dreams. They were the same kind of thunder tubes that had killed the woman and the man up-right that he had loved very much.

To the right side of him two more up-rights in masks appeared, carrying the bloody body of another up-right between them. The man looked like one of the poor souls he had seen around the fire pits but he was obviously dead, perhaps caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. The masked men carrying him stopped at the water's edge and chucked the body into the water and laughed as it landed in the murky waves with a loud splash.

Bah-ruce's eyes narrowed.

~8~

Everything was perfect, Killer Croc preened as he watched the drug operation from the metal walkway inside the warehouse.

Below him men moved shipments out into the trucks, each silent and on high alert. More thugs than he had ever hired, each with a hand gun and semi-automatic rifles, communicators, night vision goggles, and light Kevlar patrolled every inch of the warehouse. The power was being pumped inside via a generator so that the lights couldn't be cut from the outside. Men patrolled the roofs and he even had guys on the water, waiting in boats equipped with sonar. He had picked the team the day of the operation and each guy loading the trucks was a veteran, every one of them with a criminal record, jail time, and a history of violence under their belt. The right cops were bribed to look the other way and certain distractions had been put in place to draw the good cop's attention away from the docks.

Batman, Croc swore, would not be ruining this operation. Though the cost was enormous, the shipment nearly not covering the pay he was giving to the men, this job was not about drugs or money. Croc wanted to start building up his reputation again. Escaping Arkham was nothing to even blink at anymore, what he needed was fear and for people to know he was capable. This was a message to all of Gotham's underground.

And so far, everything was going according to plan.

Smiling his long, toothy smile, Croc lifted his communicator and clicked a button. "All sentries report in, any sign of the Bat?"

"Negative," each man replied one by one.

"Neg-ah-tive," the last man responded.

A short burst of laughter echoed over the communicators.

"Woah, Frank, what the hell was that? You sounded like you just got a cold," one man guffawed.

Another's nasally laughter came through the comm. "Yeah, what, are you just remembering you didn't finish school? Tryin' to spell it out or something?"

"Cut the jokes," Croc snapped. "You didn't get hired by the Joker, you got hired by _me_, so keep your mouths shut and keep an eye out for the Bat."

One by one the comms began to click off then, just as Croc was about to disengage his own communicator, a terrified voice exploded over the radio waves. "What in the hell are you!?" one of the sentries asked just as there was a thump.

"Bat's is here," Croc snarled into the comm, knowing instantly what was happening. "All sentries report, eyes peeled. Do you see him?"

"Negative," they all replied.

"Neg-ah-tive," the last added late.

"Jeez Frank, cut the joke," another add, his voice filled with panic. "This is no time for screwing around."

"Keep calm," Croc growled. Disregarding the stairs he leapt down, landing hard enough to crack the cement below him. He pushed his way through the loaders, towards the door. "I'm coming out to look for him, I'll draw him out."

As he walked out, Croc tapped a band on his wrist, waiting for a beep. He had paid good money in an underhanded deal with Lexcorp for a device designed to pick up the signals of the Batsuit. It would show him the vital signs and thus lead him to Batman.

For a minute he waited, then another, waiting for the band to start to blink and pulse but nothing happened.

Then the screaming began.

Shots rang out inside as loaders screamed in terror that only Batman could produce. "What the hell is this?"

"_Who_ is this?"

"There he is!"

Croc cursed and tore back into the building just in time to catch one of the loaders. He tossed the man aside easily, his gaze trying to get a bead on Batman, and then he saw him.

Covered in mud and leaves and barely dressed with only a cape, loin cloth, and five utility belts over him like a bandolier, this was like no Batman Croc had ever seen. He fought hand to hand, easily dispatching the loaders and sentries and dodging bullets with an envious grace.

But this wasn't Batman, this was someone else.

Growling in rage, Croc charged, tossing his own men aside like bowling pins as he raced towards the loin-clothed fighter. "I dunno who you are, but you're gonna regret crashing this party!" He roared, leaping at the Neanderthal.

The man turned, one of the loaders in his grip and tossed the man at Croc. Croc smashed into the loader, tumbling into the wall with him. Snarling he pushed away and lashed out with his tail. He turned just in time to see the Neanderthal go flying into a stack of empty boxes stamped with the icon Wayne Enterprises on all sides. Loaders and sentries all aimed at the boxes riddling them with holes. For a full on two minutes the thugs emptied clip and clips into the boxes turning them to splinters until the last box shattered leaving nothing but prickly ruins.

A hundred rounds must have been peppered into those boxes. No one could have survived such a thing. No one, but Batman.

A groan suddenly wrenched from one of the metal walkways above and the landing began to twist and shudder. Men on the walkway screamed and held onto the railing and the men below could only look up in horror as the walkway crashed atop them.

From the corner of his eyes, Croc saw the Neanderthal leaping from the last remaining walk way, metal and screws and nuts falling in his wake. In his hands were now two pipes, each adoring batarangs hastily tied to the pipes with cord so that they made two axes. Both axes in hand and at the ready, his body sailing over to leap upon him, he looked more demon than man. The cloak behind him wide and outstretched like the wings of a bat and the snarl on his face was something primal and savage, a face from another time.

Croc didn't feel fear often. He was the guy that stalked the Gotham sewers, the crocodile, the predator, but looking in the Neanderthal's eyes, he felt all too much like prey.

The thought came only a second before the Neanderthal crashed into him, sending him to the ground. Croc slashed at him, but the Neanderthal easily dodged the swings as he swiped the axes at Croc. The weapons barely scratched Croc's pebbly skin but soon enough, if the Neanderthal was determined enough, he would hit a soft spot.

And he was relentless! The strange man never let up his assault, kicking and twisting and cutting at Croc. Batman had finesse and genius and grace, this _thing,_ Croc lamented inwardly, had cunning and savagery and no limit to his brutality!

Overwhelmed with rage and fear, Croc turned to escape, blindly running up the last of the walkways. The metal creaked unsteadily under his weight but he didn't notice or care. As he ran, his tail lashed out at a large red valve, breaking the metal and causing steam to pour into the warehouse.

Panting heavily, Croc scaled higher and higher, looking for a way to the roof. The walkway swayed dangerously under his feet and metal screeched and twisted with age and weight. The world was all vaporous white and warm but Croc's sense of direction towards the roof's exit was perfect.

Unfortunately, so was the Neanderthals.

A batarang clanged at Croc's feet, making him stagger to a stop. He looked forward in the steam just in time to see one of the make-shift axes swing at him. Only instinct saved Croc as he jerked back, then, desperately, he lunged forward, catching the Neanderthal's arm.

Ba-mun tried to pull away but Croc had him now, locked in his powerful, unrelenting grip. Jerking the man towards him, Croc punched the man with his free hand over and over again. The Neanderthal grunted in pain, blood leaking from his nose as he endured blow after blow.

Smiling now, Croc held the Neanderthal up by his one arm and walked over to the edge of the walkway. Rancid breath streamed from Croc's maw as he let his snout hover just an inch from the dazed Neanderthal. "Gotta admit, you almost had me there, freak. You must be a new member of the Bat-family. What do they call you? The Bat-Before-Time? Cavebat?" Croc laughed cruelly and held Bah-ruce over the edge where below the sharp tangled mass of the last fallen walkway awaited. "Guess they'll call you Deceased soon."

Ba-mun looked up, his mouth a bloody mess as he smiled. "Neg-ah-tive." Before Croc could react, Ba-mun lashed out with his feet, hitting the edge of the fragile walkway. The metal gave one more screeching and tipped with their weight, finally breaking apart.

Croc screamed as they both fell. He closed his eyes tight, prepared to meet the end. He never saw the streak come in through one of the broken windows and never felt the jolt of the sudden stop. The only thing he didn't feel were the spikes of twisted metal penetrating his pebbly, reptilian hide.

Carefully opening one eye, Croc looked at the spikes still well below him and the Neanderthal. For a moment he wondered if the real Batman had come to save them, but then, Batman did not wear a golden lasso and a star spangled leotard.

"I guess that they say is true," Diana said with a sigh as she flew them down to a safe spot on the floor. "There never is a dull moment in Gotham."


End file.
